How to release an album: a few advices from Neformat 

Year by year Neformat faces with situations, when fascinating underground Ukrainian artists undeservedly get too little attention. But to a certain extent there is also a fault of musicians, who think that everything in 2019 will work in the same way as 10 years ago: you upload your album on the Bandcamp, post a link on Facebook and send it to a couple of friends in private messages. And that’s all!
Ok, of course, loyal fans and such maniac websites as ours will find it anyway, but if you can get more with a little effort, then why give it up?

In general, we wrote about strategy mistakes of Ukrainian music bands in the guerrilla marketing article and here we also gave some advice of how to improve this situation. But  aas for today we want to concentrate on one concrete topic: how to release LP or EP, because it’s almost the most important event in the history of a band. In addition, we’ll tell how to use Bandcamp effectively, anyway you won’t get streams from somewhere else easily.

So, you’re at the final stage of the recording process. For a start, you need to make a plan. You can take a piece of paper or gadget, whatever is more comfortable for you, and describe everything well for yourself. It better be done with the dates and names of people responsible for separate tasks. Well, we’ll tell you how it approximately should look like.

Desires and Opportunities

But firstly, you need to ask yourself a few questions. Your planning depends on your answers. This means you need to understand by yourself who you are, for whom you write your music, what result you want to reach and what resources you have for it.

— Who’s your audience?

First of all, you need to understand who’s listening to you. After all folk-metal fans behavior is different from crust connoisseurs. Think about the middle age of your listener. Where this person potentially works, how one spends free time, what one potentially listens to, but the main thing is why he or she listens to you and what needs are satisfied by your creativity? Such awareness will allow you to interact much better and more effectively with your listeners.

— When to release your album?

There is no perfect recipe, but in short, the date must be chosen wisely. At first, think about general objective factors. If there are May holidays or the very end of December, people will rest or will be busy buying X-Mas salad ingredients. So the part of them will potentially postpone listening to your album for a more convenient time. Therefore, there is a risk that listeners will eventually forget about it.
Another approach is planning the release on Halloween or alike popular date, what is very frequent among many bands. The idea is good but there will be a dozen of releases the same X day. Maybe, it’s better to choose a date before it or after the event? You understood the logic. But there are more complex factors. If you’re a newborn band, which started to play stoner not so long ago and you’re planning to issue LP the same day Stoned Jesus releases its album, it’s clear who people will prefer. At the same time, a part of people because of loud release can postpone listening to you and potentially forget about you. So, the need to check in advance if there are some music or closer to events at the same day will appear. Because such a situation could  respect your auditorium.

— What is your concept?

So, when you know, who’slistening to you and when it is the best time to present the result of your creativity. Think, what unique things your album or your band in general has? What could set you apart from other artists? The most advanced could invent the concept and connect it to themselves or to release, but, frankly saying, artificiality is almost always felt. So it's better to focus on something not so large, but on the thing you really have which arose in itself. Simply make this trick visible for the wide circle of people.

— What about graphics?

There are many variants of how and where to get the album cover satisfying different tastes. Reminding, the visual part is super important when the potential listener has dozens of new releases before his eyes. It could become the key factor for the listener, who will be fascinated to listen to you exactly. So, think if you already have the cover for your album and how unique it is. Also, estimate whether you have a fresh good-quality photo of the full band membership. All this will come in handy later. In general, it's great if your band has well-established recognizable visual style. If not, it's worth thinking about.

— Are you going to release physical media and merch?

The budget should be thought out in advance. Physical media and merch, on the one hand, can be a significant part of your costs, but if done wisely. On the other hand, they can cover the part of your album costs. But this is a topic for a separate article.

— What should your promotional campaign include?

Meaning singles-clips in support of the release, promotional campaign on social networks, paid advertising in social media, free and paid materials in media, contests, tests, memes and everything else you can only imagine. This, saying it again, is a very large-scale topic, but our main message is that you must have a promotional campaign, albeit at minimal cost. Because it's one thing to throw an album like snow on people's heads, and it's quite another to make them wait a bit. Think about it.

— How will the concert be presented?

If your band is not a studio project, you should organize an album presentation in your own city, or in the nearest big city. Even if it’s an open rehearsal for the most loyal 20 fans, it definitely will not be superfluous. Because, as observations show, live performances are as important for the success as music itself. It often helps the band growing its audience, maintaining interest to itself.

— And what about streaming and label?

We definitely wish that all bands could upload their releases onto all possible streaming services. But if you do not want to pay for such a service, at least cover all possible free sites: Soundcloud, YouTube, Bandcamp, so the listeners could find you within their convenient environment. You can even think about your own site, which has its advantages, but we are not ready to give 100% evaluation of such a resource’s effectiveness.
The same thing to be said about label. If you do not plan to publish on your own, look for a label, discuss how you can be useful for each other, in short, take the issue of spreading your work seriously, 2019th is outside!

— Count your budget.

And now, having understood all you want to do with your album, estimate how much money, time, contacts and other possible resources you have and compare these two lists. Traditionally there are not so many resources, so the only thing to add to the final plan is what resonates the most with your audience. And think about the donates, Patreon, crowdfunding and alike things. It seems to be the most realistic way to at least partially cover your costs for the album this stage. Although, you need to know how to use this mechanism wisely. Putting all information together, you should realize what you are releasing, for whom, how much it will cost you and what your terms and deadlines are.

You can find a lot of videos online about release planning

Plan itself

We think, that we have already dealt with all main issues, so let's move on to a step-by-step plan. We take the fact that you have the finished or almost finished record and the chosen release date as the basis. That’s great if you took some photos/shoot videos in the process of recording and posted them in your social media. But it’s in the past, let’s concentrate on the fact of release itself.

What should you prepare for the release day:

— Visual design

It is good to have a cover, but for the full release you’ll need a lot of graphics of different sizes. These are square images for Instagram, and vertical for stories, a cover for your Facebook and anything else that will come in handy for your existing social media. A few photos of the band with the current lineup or from recent performances won’t be superfluous either. All this should be prepared before the X day and then just uploaded in the right places. Warning! Don’t do everything at the last moment.

— Streaming

You choose where to upload an album according to your financial strategy. There is, for example, the widespread common practice among metal bands, when albums are released on physical media, and you can listen to a few tracks only online. But you should use this somewhat extreme approach if you really understand how and why you do it.
If your goal is just to be heard, we’d recommend uploading your release wherever it is possible: Bandcamp, YouTube, Soundcloud, etc… This is something to take care of beforehand, because all services work differently. For example, your release can go to Google Play in a few days, while Spotify will approve it in a month. Promised features of working with Bandcamp will be described below in a separate section.

— Content plan for social media

You may know what to write on social media, but you still need an additional clearly defined plan. Firstly, analyze which social networks you have and which of them are the most active. Concentrate your attention on them. Secondly, ponder what formats are native to these social media and work best there. E. g. you should not forget about the "stories" function on Instagram, but the same format is not so popular on Facebook. And, thirdly, starting from the release date and the components of your promo-campaign, write down the dates, prepare the texts and graphics for social networks and, following your tablet, gradually post everything or plan it where possible.
You can also read our tips considering Instagram and YouTube channel managment.

— Microinfluencers

We all know well about damn Facebook algorithms and you probably could think, why I need so much bothering? Well, because some of us, listeners, need a bit of this formality, not to just randomly catch your album on streaming site (which also happens), wondering what it is. And if you want to increase the effectiveness of social media, previously arrange with your friends, loyal listeners, other familiar musicians who can support you, so that they like, comment and repost your album, and even better write something about it on the day of release. The more famous these people are, the better. In this way, the coverage of the audience will be greater.

— Press pack for media

Ukrainian bands have different attitudes towards the media, depending on their experience of communication and the effect obtained. But why to neglect this mechanism if it exists? First, make a list of media (and their contacts) that could potentially have an interest about your album. This also includes radio, various Telegram and Facebook public pages and similar resources. Secondly, prepare the press pack, which should contain not only press release with information about your album and band, but also a cover, various photos (some even add ready-made stories), links to your social networks, streaming and the most important – opportunity to listen to your release. Thirdly, send it not in a month after release but about a week before the release date. Media are also the topic for a separate article, but we wrote about it in details in the same article about guerrilla marketing.

What to do on a release day:

So, today is the day of release. We assume that yesterday or the day before yesterday you checked for several times whether you have everything you need to distribute it. Mistakes may occur even with the best control provided, but in its complete absence it is going to be the attempt to fix many things on the go, and you still have to go to work. Maybe. Therefore, it’s better to control everything and open all the links on the day of release, upload the necessary pictures on the social networks, publish the posts, respond to the comments, in short, to do everything possible for the maximal activity around your release.

What to do after the release?

No time to relax. Firstly, you should stretch album promo campaign for a week or two after its release. For example, you can post a lyric video in a week or use the other ways to keep in touch with your audience so that everyone interested can hear about your work. The same release presentation will come in handy here. You can write to the media again and remind about yourself as we may be inattentive or tired, too.
The second important point is the analysis of what has been done. You have the plan in front of your eyes and are aware of own results. Think about what you managed to do, what problems you’ve faced, what worked the best and what was the worst. Walk through each item in details. It is good if you find some real indicators beforehand, for example, the number of subscribers in social media, listenings on Bandcamp, views of your channel, etc. As a result, it can be compared as "before" and "after" data. Accordingly, next time you’ll understand the process better and will spend less time preparing with higher results.

Another example of release planning

We've added the briefed plan for album release without any dates as a bonus:

• Record an album.
• Determine the release date.
• Explore your audience.
• Decide on the concept of release.
• Find a label / streaming aggregators.
• Set the goals that can be measured
• Bring the order to your social media, if necessary, create new ones.
• Prepare the cover and photo of the band.
• Choose one of the best songs for the pre-release single.
• Choose another song and shoot a video for it.
• Agree on merch and physicality.
• Schedule the album presentation concert.
• Make a content plan for social networks.
• Prepare a press pack.
• Make a list of media, public pages, opinion leaders, contact them.
• Check the degree of all items fulfillment.
• Release the album.
• Analyze your results.

So how to work with Bandcamp?

We have an editorial sign that when a certain band is on Bandcamp, it's almost exactly our band. And since a lot of musicians still squint at streams, let's talk about how to use this instrument the best. Bandcamp has a number of its own chips and features that you should pay attention to. You’ll learn more about them if you read a few articles or watch a few thematic videos published online. Here are some examples of less obvious or just ignored features to be conceived and used.

1. Release design

Let's start with the simplest. Some bands neglect the opportunity to add additional information about their album to Bandcamp, although there is a separate field for it. Maybe it's just laziness or, perhaps, lack of understanding that Bandcamp is a full-fledged and autonomic resource, and everyone should not go to your Facebook to find out more. We definitely recommend describing your album. And don't forget about the cool opportunity to add lyrics to each track separately, especially when it comes to extreme vocals, where it is difficult to decipher the words by ear. Believe, your devoted fans will appreciate it.

2. Statistics.

If you've never used it, it's time to start. Find out which song is the most popular, where the listeners come from, how their activity has changed and so on.

3. The price of release.

This item with extremely flexible settings not only affects how much money you get. For example, you can bet $0, but in exchange for an email. In this way, you will form a base of direct contacts with your loyal listeners, and this really works. Later, you can send a newsletter with the latest news to these e-mails. The worst option for everyone to choose is "free download", because there is no chance to add your release to collection then and you won't get a potential penny from your generous fan. But still the most valuable thing here is contacts.

4. Pre-order.

Pre-order mechanism works very well on Bandcamp, though is ignored by many artists for some reason. Pre-order is advantageous at least because it’s the additional infodrive which will be sent by mail to all your subscribers. You can share it on your social networks as well. In addition, the pre-order is a condition for the next point to work.

5. Exclusive embed.

Once you have pre-ordered, Bandcamp allows you to create the pre-release exclusive embed-code that will work on specific sites. It is also the additional newsbreak and the opportunity to agree on exclusive material with your info partners. We add some more. There is editorial staff on Bandcamp listening to albums uploaded on the Internet, as the result of it some article, may appear, that undoubtedly adds a lot of recognition to the Ukrainian electronic artists mentioned in it.

Example video about the benefits of Bandcamp

In short, the main advice here, as with everything else: you should have the full picture of what and why you are doing, as well as to command of your instruments good. So, a little interest payed and the you’ll squeeze the additional profits of our favorite Bandcamp. Because, going back to the beginning, why not get more?

Conclusion

When I wrote this article, I thought that it would probably be too general for many. But the fact is that nothing will work without homework.
There are some thematic conferences and trainings for musicians in Kyiv, but they often expect you to already know such basic things. And we are not ready for our own courses yet on Neformat, so you need to do your best yourselves. Because if you're already putting an album on Bandcamp, it's a big self-deception to say that it's just for yourself later. So try a little more, become professional not only in playing your instruments, but in promo mechanisms also, because only we can grow this scene together, only by working together. And if we don’t treat underground seriously ourselves, then why should others do it? But at the same time, remember that the main thing in our business is still quality music, without which your best promotion is just a waste of time and money.

During this article writing, the practical knowledge of Yaryna Denysiuk and Mykola Maga was used, along with the advice of Phil Dobrov, Facebook posts of Masterskaya, Serhiy Yusypyuk (who, in fact, describes his new challenge "We release the Ukrainian rapper's album" in super details) and Vadim Stoos.